I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That’s why I served in World War II, and that’s why I wrote books.
Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.
You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages – they haven’t ended yet.
I taught writing for a while and whenever somebody would tell me they were going to write about their dad, I would tell them they might as well go write about killing puppies because neither story was going to work. It just doesn’t work.
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide.
I think jokes are a perfectly viable form of literature. Some critics take issue with me because I make my points and discuss my ideas with jokes, rather than with oceanic tragedy.
Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.
I still catch myself feeling sad about things that don’t matter anymore.
Hitler at the end thought that he himself was one more casualty in the war.
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not.
Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.
The more pain I train myself to stand, the more I learn. You are afraid of pain now, Unk, but you won’t learn anything if you don’t invite the pain. And the more you learn, the gladder you will be to stand the pain.
It’s an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite.
When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlighenment and comfort at top speed.
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
We have such a young culture that there is an opportunity to contribute wonderful new myths to it, which will be accepted.
Well here you are, there it is, THIS is what it’s all about.
A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
Don’t worry about your father. He’s a perfectly contented, self-sufficient zombie.